People use digital maps for all kinds of purposes, not just navigating while driving.
For example I often look at digital maps as a pedestrian in order to know which direction to walk (even without actually entering navigation mode), or in order to find out where places of interest are around me, and there it definitely helps that the angles are the same in reality as on the map.
Most navigation software doesn’t show the map from the top, but from behind looking forward
only when navigating, not when looking at the map
Mercator is bad as a world map, but the reason why it's used on most online maps is that those online maps are usually used as local maps, where Mercator is a very good projection. It would be good if online maps switched projections if you zoomed out beyond a certain level.
On a local level (City or State/Province level), where most navigation for non-experts is taking place, the chosen map projection doesn’t matter that much.
Yes, it does, because on a local level you want real-world right angles to be right angles on the map, which Mercator does, but other projections might not…
Yes, and that is mentioned very early in the article in the OP…
I just hate the idea of someone defending a billionare or trillion dollar company for any reason.
Then you have a very simplistic worldview. There are many disputes where different large companies are adversarial to each other, so if you have an opinion about them at all, you need to defend one of them.
For example occasionally media companies will try to get laws passed in various countries to make social media platforms pay for linking to journalistic articles. A stupid and nonsensical idea for many reasons, but by calling it that, I may have just "defended" Meta?
"Defending" when accused of what? The question is somewhat meaningless without knowing that.
After your edit, it is slightly clearer what you are asking. But this is still a matter of desktop environment more than distro.
They corrected it in Windows 98, though, and extended the invisible, active target zone of the Start button to the outer 1-pixel boundary of the screen.
Is this actually true? I seem to remember once trying it on Windows 2000 and there it didn't extend all the way to the edge.
Maybe, idk, I rarely use anything not based on OpenStreetMap. 😛